There is a new development in the saga of the Nazi-looted Amedeo Modigliani painting Seated Man With a Cane (1918). The New York Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday (16 June) that the dealer David Nahmad has 30 days to return the work to Philippe Maestracci, the grandson of the late Jewish dealer Oscar Stettiner. The ruling follows Judge Joel M. Cohen’s decision in April that the painting be restituted, but he had not yet specified a timeline.
“We will be appealing the judge’s decisions,” reads a statement from Nahmad’s lawyers provided to The Art Newspaper. "We are doing so because this ruling has been made without the testimony of the only eyewitnesses who saw the Modigliani that is central to the case, and establishes that the work that was taken from Oscar Stettiner was not Seated Man with a Cane.”
In May, Nahmad’s lawyers filed a motion to review the case based on eyewitness testimony that the painting the Lebanese billionaire had bought in 1996 for $3.2m (now worth an estimated $30m) was not the same one taken from Stettiner by the Nazis; they also cited research by the Modigliani expert Marc Restellini, which they claimed disproved Stettiner’s ownership of Nahmad’s painting. Maestracci’s lawyers subsequently filed a memorandum in opposition to the motion to review.
Maestracci’s lawyer Phillip C. Landrigran tells The Art Newspaper that a new appeal could “hold us up for another five years. Having a right to appeal and its value are two different things. The Appellate Division has four times heard appeals from Nahmad in this matter, always decrying the harm to his reputation and that I am a liar and a con. Every one of those appeals was denied, as any appeal from Judge Cohen’s recent decisions will be. All an appeal may do is further delay restitution to the Holocaust victim’s heir.”
But Nahmad stands firm that this has all been a case of mistaking one Modigliani painting for another. His lawyers aim to prove this through the eyewitness testimony of the photographer Frederic Allain and his wife, Odile Carlotti-Allain, a film producer. Allain is the godson of Jean Van der Klip, who bought the Nazi-looted painting in 1944 and whose heirs sold it at Christie's 50 years later.
“In his sworn affirmation, Allain states that on multiple occasions throughout his life, his godparents would take ‘the Modigliani’ (singular) out of its hiding place in their home, unwrap it, show it and hide it again,” Nahmad’s lawyers said in a statement. “Allain’s wife, Odile Carlotti-Allain, later saw the same painting. Both of them state in their affirmations that the painting at issue was definitely not Seated Man with a Cane. Rather it was a small, darkly hued, gloomy portrait of a man who was not seated and did not have a cane. It was also much smaller.”
But Maestracci’s lawyers, who have been involved in the case for more than 11 years, disagree. “I never understood why Nahmad would risk his reputation and that of his art enterprise by persisting in the futile effort to avoid doing the right thing here,” Landrigran says. “I even offered as a face-saver to allow him to hold a turnover press conference explaining how the evidence that’s come to light compels him in good conscience, and with due respect to all Holocaust victims, to return the painting and maybe rehabilitate his reputation. A photo-op of him standing next to Stettiner’s grateful grandson on the return of his family’s property. A win-win scenario. Nahmad blames us for his admitted reputational harm, but he hoists himself with his own petard, repeatedly.”
It now appears that Nahmad and his representatives are pushing for a trial. “We are disappointed that the court has resolved this matter without conducting a trial and hearing live witnesses,” the statement from Nahmad's lawyers concludes. “We feel it’s essential that the eyewitnesses testify in court, especially given who they are and their willingness to voluntarily travel to New York to give their testimony.”
